


The End of the World

by voxanonymi (spasmodicIntrigue)



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Caffeine Withdrawal, Friendship, Gen, Headaches & Migraines, Humor, Injury, Mild Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-18
Updated: 2019-07-18
Packaged: 2020-07-08 01:09:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19861063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spasmodicIntrigue/pseuds/voxanonymi
Summary: “Noct,” he said. “Would you pass me an Ebony, please?”“Sure,” said Noctis, disappearing from the rear view as he reached for the cooler bag in the footwell. After some rustling, he said, “Huh.” He reappeared in the mirror, expression apologetic. “We’re all out.”A a freak rainstorm, a power outage, a missing gas station manager, and a distinct lack of caffeine in Ignis' system. The day, so far, is not shaping up to be particularly pleasant.





	The End of the World

**Author's Note:**

> I don't really know what this is. I started writing it in January but then KH3 happened and then I had to finish my thesis and then after that it was like wow what do I write now?? it has been 84 years. So I came back to this as a way of getting back into the swing of things. It's not my best work by a long shot, but I wrote the bulk of it in one sitting and had a great time, so. Maybe I'm just being hypercritical!
> 
> Anyway, this was written for the [Bad Things Happen Bingo](https://badthingshappenbingo.tumblr.com/) prompt, "Headache/Migraine." You can find my card [here](https://voxanonymi.tumblr.com/post/181425807671/so-since-i-have-a-lot-of-internalised-anger-and)!

There were several reasons why Ignis was the default driver of the group, though approximately half of them were variations on his reputation as “the sensible one.” Honestly, Ignis _liked_ being the driver. He liked being in control. Everyone does, in their own ways, just some more than others—and Ignis certainly fit into the “more than others” category.

To put it plainly, though, Ignis just enjoyed driving. It was especially pleasant to drive a car such as the Regalia, a smooth ride with responsive steering, acceleration, and braking, and effective windscreen wipers which helped greatly in torrential rain such as this.

Not to mention the stereo system, with rear-mounted speakers and dedicated bass and treble adjusters. Sound that was loud and clear enough to cut through the thrum of rain and thud of wipers. A little _too_ loud and clear, perhaps, when the only frequency they could pick up was the local Duscae FM.

_“And now, the weather. Ray?”_

_“Well, Shelby, it sure is raining. You could even say that it’s_ Ray _-ning.”_

_“Not sure about that one, Ray.”_

_“On a more serious note, Shelby, the squall doesn’t look likely to let up anytime soon. We’ve even had reports of lightning strikes in the northeast!”_

_“Jeepers creepers, Ray!”_

_“That’s for sure, Shelby. Here at Duscae FM, we prescribe a full-day dose of staying inside, but if you absolutely have to go out, make sure to exercise due caution, folks!”_

_“And remember to get the washing in!”_

_“Ha ha ha ha, good one, Shelby!”_

_“Say, Ray, doesn’t this remind you of—”_

Ignis turned the radio off. “I think that’s quite enough of that.”

“Aw, come on,” Prompto protested. “They’re not _that_ bad.”

“Yes they are,” said Gladio, not even deigning to look up from his novel. “They’re somehow even more annoying than you, Prompto.”

“Hey!”

“Agreed,” said Noctis, chin nestled in one hand as he watched the rain-sodden landscape of Duscae whip past. They hadn’t seen any lightning as yet, despite the fact that they were headed to the northeast, where it was “reported” to have struck. So far, there was just rain, rain, and more rain.

“Didn’t you buy some CDs in Lestallum?” said Ignis.

Prompto grimaced. “Well, yeah, but, uh… the CD player’s stuck.”

“Again?”

“I _swear_ it wasn’t my fault this time!”

Ignis sighed. “No matter. We’re en route to Hammerhead, anyway—I’m sure Cindy will be able to fix it in short order.

Prompto let out a breath of nervous laughter. “Yeah. Yeah! Cindy will _totally_ be able to figure it out, in, like, two seconds flat. Yeah. Cindy will fix it.”

“You broke it on purpose, didn’t you?” said Gladio.

“Obviously,” said Noctis.

“No way!” Prompto spluttered. “I wouldn’t do a thing like that!”

Ignis took a hand off the steering wheel to push his glasses up his nose. Despite the rain, the air was warm, resulting in an inescapable, sticky humidity—not sticky enough, however, to prevent Ignis’ glasses from sliding down his nose. Facilitating it, rather.

They’d started the day frantically. The previous night had been clear as crystal, affording them an unobscured view of the cosmos from their haven campground. As they’d slept, something of a stormfront had rolled in, and the tumult of rainfall had rudely awakened them much earlier than any of them would have liked.

After packing in a rush and retreating to the shelter of the Regalia, they’d had a sparse and unsatisfying breakfast of muesli bars before setting off towards the Alstor Coernix station, where they would no doubt make up for breakfast’s deficit with an early lunch at the Crow’s Nest.

In all the fuss, Ignis hadn’t even had time for coffee. No wonder his patience was already running thin.

“Noct,” he said. “Would you pass me an Ebony, please?”

“Sure,” said Noctis, disappearing from the rear view as he reached for the cooler bag in the footwell. After some rustling, he said, “Huh.”

“Yes?”

Noctis reappeared in the mirror, expression apologetic, empty hands held up. “We’re all out.”

“Oh.” Ignis frowned. “I was sure we… Well, it’s no matter, we’re almost there.”

“Yeah, but… last time we were there, the Ebony was out of stock,” Noctis pointed out.

“That was a while ago. I’m sure they will have replenished their stores by now.”

In the corner of his vision, Ignis noticed Noctis exchanging a sceptical glance with Gladio. He pushed his glasses up his nose again. “Or if not, I’ll make do with the hot bilgewater they call coffee at the Crow’s Nest,” he added.

Prompto snickered. “You are such a coffee snob.”

“He prefers the term ‘connoisseur’,” said Gladio.

“It’s only that I prefer quality,” Ignis said. “In any case, it’s not the end of the world.”

It was the end of the world.

“Man, I was _so_ looking forward to a massive plate of fries!” was Prompto’s first complaint when they parked up at the Coernix station only to receive the news that the power was out. The lights were out, the petrol pumps weren’t running, and the only thing the Crow’s Nest could serve were those cheap sugary soft drinks.

And the Ebony was still out of stock.

“Honestly, Prompto, we have worse problems than being unable to fill our guts with greasy diner food,” Ignis snapped.

“Yeah, Iggy’ll bite all our heads off if he doesn’t get his caffeine fix soon,” said Gladio, exchanging an amused glance with Noctis. They were both leaning on the side of the Regalia as the four of them discussed the situation.

“I was referring to the rain.” The deluge was so dense that they could barely see the road from where they stood, and so loud that they had to shout to be heard. The downpour had worsened significantly as they’d drawn close to the station; gotten so bad that Ignis had barely been able to see more than a few feet beyond the car’s snout and had to slow to a crawl for the last hundred metres.

Driving to the conditions was one of the foremost rules to keep in mind for anyone who plans on getting behind the wheel, but sometimes driving to the conditions meant not driving at all. They were, effectively, stranded.

“Not much we can do about that,” said Gladio.

Ignis sighed through his nose. He could feel a budding headache in his temples, and he just hoped it was nothing more than the stress of the situation. “We’ll just have to wait until it lets up some,” he said. “It’s too risky to keep driving in this weather.”

“So what _do_ we do?” Prompto asked.

“We go inside,” said Noctis, pushing off from the side of the car to walk the short distance to the mini-mart’s front door.

Given that there was little else _to_ do, Ignis and the other two followed him.

The people of Duscae either took the advice of the Duscae FM hosts to heart, or were themselves gifted with enough common sense to not try traveling on a day such as this. Any other day, the Alstor Coernix and Crow’s Nest had a modest stream of people coming and going, but the only other person in the mini-mart today was the shop attendant, a twitchy man in his mid-twenties or so.

“Come on in, boys,” he called to them as they entered, heralded by the chime of the door bell. “We’ll get the back-up generators running soon enough, then you can at least have something to eat and drink over at the Nest while you wait for the rain to roll over.”

“See, Iggy? It’s not the end of the world,” Gladio teased.

The rest-area in the corner of the mini-mart was home to a frighteningly outdated espresso machine and a bunch of hard plastic chairs around a low table with uneven legs, compensated for by a stack of coasters. They would probably be more comfortable just waiting in the Regalia, but if the back-up power was on its way, as the attendant claimed, then, yes—it _would_ be nice to have something to eat and drink while they waited.

Although, Ignis had a strange, creeping feeling about the situation. Not that he could put his finger on precisely what it was. Perhaps it was merely courtesy of the increasingly sharp pain in his head.

Noctis had slumped into one of the plastic chairs with his feet up on the table and his phone in his hands. Gladio and Prompto were over by the camp supplies, arguing about something or other—Ignis heard the words “rain tarp” and “motel” thrown back and forth. In need of a distraction from the headache, Ignis himself was perusing the magazine stand by the door. The available selection reflected the concerns of the area—plenty of fishing and farming weeklies, a couple of obligatory motoring magazines, a wildlife quarterly, and the Daily Duscaen Digest in the paper rack alongside. In the back were the comic periodicals, several months out of date. It took a while for them to reach stands outside the city, Ignis supposed. With a familiar jolt, he realised that the next editions would never arrive. Certainly not anytime soon.

He was distracted from his grim thoughts by movement to his left, and looked over to see the shop attendant peering out into the rain, anxiously wringing his hands.

“Something the matter?” Ignis questioned.

“Oh, it’s probably nothing to worry about,” the attendant said. “It’s just… well, the generators run on LPG, right? But when we went to boot ‘em up, we found out that the bottles were empty after the last outage we had, few weeks back. So, George—my boss, see, he’s the manager here—he said he was gonna walk back to his house and fetch his spares. He doesn’t live far, maybe only fifteen minutes down the road. But that was nearly an hour ago, now.”

Ignis frowned. “Do you suspect that something might have happened to him?”

“Well, I—I hope not. I don’t know. You never know what’s lurking out in those trees. Or—or maybe he got lost or something. Real easy to get lost out there in this sort of weather.”

At some point during the attendant’s explanation, Noctis had come up behind Ignis and listened in. “We could go look, if you’re that worried,” he said.

Ignis turned to him with raised eyebrows.

“You don’t have to do that!” The attendant said quickly. “I mean… I’d be mighty grateful if you _did_ , but…”

“May as well,” Noctis said, as if he really didn’t care either way. “Not like we have anything better to do. My phone’s out of battery.”

The attendant’s face lit up. “That’s very kind of you! Uh—I’ll get the map and show you where George’s house is.”

He rushed off, disappearing into the back room, door swinging in his wake.

“You realise it’s raining, Noct,” Ignis reminded him.

“As if I could forget?”

“Last I recall, you weren’t a particular fan of getting caught in the rain.”

Noctis crossed his arms tightly. “I’m not, but—”

“What’s happening now?” Gladio asked as he and Prompto approached.

“Noct has kindly offered to track down the station’s missing manager, who apparently went out in search of fuel for the generators and has yet to return,” Ignis explained.

Gladio hummed. “How nice of you, Noct. Hope you don’t get too cold out there.”

Noctis scowled. “You’re coming with me.”

“Am I?”

“Don’t make him pull rank on you, Gladio,” Prompto warned.

“I’ll do it,” Noctis said seriously. “I will royally decree that all three of you _have_ to come with me.”

“Not the royal decrees!” Prompto cried.

“The royal fucking decrees,” said Noctis.

Ignis’ headache was getting worse by the second.

The shop attendant, whose name they never caught, gave them a each a plastic rain poncho, on the house, before they set out.

They looked completely ridiculous, in Ignis’ opinion, with glorified plastic bags pulled over their clothes. The ponchos were, at least, effective enough in keeping them dry—from the knees up, at least. Since there was quite a gale, however, and they were unlucky enough to be walking against it, they had to hold the hoods down over their faces lest the wind wrench them back and render them utterly useless.

Gladio gave up on the hood almost immediately. Noctis and Prompto were insistent on not getting their hair wet, and Ignis tried oh so hard to keep the rain off his glasses—failing, of course, because it was slanted towards them. They trekked south along the road, not bothering to watch for traffic, because no one was mad enough to be out in this weather. Except them, of course—and except George, the as-yet unaccounted-for manager.

Unable even to talk to each other over the wind and the rain, they trod along miserably. The rain was bitterly cold and sharp on Ignis’ face, and the patter of raindrops on his plastic hood and the less-than-optimal visibility did unsurprisingly little for the sour headache squeezing the sides of his head. At this point, he wasn’t sure how much of the headache was due to his rather frightening dependence on caffeine and how much was mere tension. Or if the two met in the middle and brought out the worst in each other. The air was so thick with moisture that he could barely breathe, and the pain was bad enough that a pale nausea hung about him like a… like a plastic poncho.

Ignis soon gave up on the hood—and his glasses, tucking them into the inside pocket of his jacket for the time being. The result was that everything in his immediate vicinity was mildly indistinct, but it was that or see nothing at all. And, technically, he could see _outside_ his immediate vicinity more or less fine—if only the weather would allow him to see that far.

Visibility was so poor that they nearly missed the narrow dirt driveway the shop attendant had shown them on the map. It was just wide enough for a single car to traverse, shallow tyre tracks flooded with murky water. It departed from the main road at a right-angle and disappeared into the forest of northeast Duscae. A one-way road to filthy footwear. Great.

“This it?” Gladio called over the rain.

“I believe so,” Ignis answered.

“No sign of our guy yet.”

“Maybe he decided to wait inside his house for a bit?” Prompto suggested. “You know. Like a sensible person?” He threw a pointed glare at Noctis.

“Okay, I regret everything,” Noctis admitted.

Ignis sighed. “Later, we’re going to have a serious talk about thinking before acting.”

“Yeah, yeah, lesson learned. Let’s just get on with it.”

Just as Noctis finished speaking, they were all startled out of their plastic ponchos by a deafening _crack_ overhead. The accompanying flash of sheet lightning near well blinded them.

“No thank you!” Prompto yelped, voice jumping up an octave.

“Let’s hurry it up,” said Gladio. “The rain won’t be so bad under the trees.”

Thankfully, he was somewhat correct about that. The tree canopy muffled the rainfall enough that they no longer had to shout to each other, but not so much that they weren’t liable to get soaked without the ponchos. Although, by this point, they’d _all_ given up on the hoods. The rain had drenched Ignis’ collar and was soaking down his shirt. It was horridly uncomfortable; he shivered despite the muggy air; he could barely see; and a distinct feeling of apprehension was creeping up his spine to tangle with the water dripping down the back of his neck.

All that, and the headache. Didn’t think _that_ had gone away, did you? Hell no.

“I don’t like this,” he said quietly. They’d been following the driveway for a couple of minutes now, weaving through the trees, which clumped closer together the further they walked. The canopy blocked more and more of the rain—and more and more of the light. You would be forgiven for thinking it were dusk, when, really, it was barely after midday.

“God, I _said_ I was sorry,” Noctis groaned.

“That’s not what I meant. Something feels… wrong.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean,” Prompto grumbled with an exaggerated shiver, hugging himself. “It’s _cold_ suddenly.”

Noctis stopped. “No, you’re right,” he said. “It’s like…” His brow furrowed. “But that makes no sense.”

“Spit it out,” said Gladio.

“I think it’s the smell,” Noctis said. “It’s like when we were looking for Ramuh’s runes.”

Ignis sniffed the air. “Ozone.”

“It’s a storm, that’s not unusual,” said Gladio.

“Uh, guys?” said Prompto. “You hear that?”

“It’s not just the smell,” Noctis insisted. “There’s this… _charge_ in the air. Like after someone tosses a thunder flask.”

“Magic,” said Ignis. Of course— _that_ was what he could feel.

“Guys!” Prompto interjected. “Listen!”

They listened. The sound in question was barely audible over the persistent rain, but then its source stepped out from behind the trees just ahead, and the coeurl’s low snarl was unmistakable. The massive feline prowled across the driveway, beginning to circle them clockwise as it sized them up. It’s tendril-like whiskers crackled with electricity.

“Oh, fuck,” said Noctis.

Then, as if one weren’t bad enough, a second coeurl appeared, and began to circle the other way.

“No sudden moves,” Ignis breathed. Like most cats, coeurls liked to play with their food. Sudden movement would provoke them. They’d attack soon enough, but it would be unwise to expedite the inevitability.

Slowly, carefully, the four of them turned their backs on each other, keeping eyes on the beasts, leaving no blind spots.

“Got any bright ideas?” Gladio growled.

Ignis cast for a quick strategy that would eventuate with their survival, limbs intact, but traversing his own thoughts was like trying to run a marathon with lead encasing his limbs. “Fire,” he blurted. “They don’t like fire.”

“That’s real helpful,” said Gladio. “Especially in this weather. I don’t have any fire flasks. You guys?”

“None here,” said Prompto.

“Neither,” said Noctis. “Got some fire in the tank, though.”

“I have one flask,” said Ignis. “But using fire magic indiscriminately risks burning down the entire forest, even in the rain.”

“Shit, you’re right,” Noctis muttered. “Can’t you do that… fire knife thing?”

“ _Fire knife thing?”_ parroted Prompto.

“I think so,” said Ignis. One of the coeurls was barely three feet in front of him, turning its gaze onto him as he spoke, baring its teeth. Ignis did _not_ want to get in the way of those livewire whiskers. He took a deep breath and tried to focus. “Gladio, Prompto, keep the other one busy,” he said, quickly and quietly. “Noct, I need you distract this one so I can get in close.” He hated to put Noctis in the line of fire (or in this case, lightning), but there was little choice. Practically speaking, Noctis was best equipped to get out of the way in half a second flat, if necessary.

If the others had objections to the plan, there was no time for revisions. The coeurls pounced—one of them leaping straight for Ignis.

He threw himself to the side, head pounding under the pressure of the instant adrenaline rush.

Coeurls were quick on the recovery. It would have leapt for him again—and gotten him, while he was struggling to gain purchase in the mud puddle he’d landed in—if not for the concentrated burst of fire magic Noctis shot at it, catching its left whisker-tendril and filling the air with the acrid smell of burnt fur.

“Here, kitty, kitty!” Noctis called.

The coeurl whipped around with a screech. Ignis summoned his daggers and a fire flask. He concentrated for a moment, drawing out the processed energy and setting his blades alight.

Just as the coeurl had recovered from the blast, Ignis darted towards it, knives first. At the same time, the beast leapt for Noctis. Ignis’ first blade sank deep into its flank—rather than its ribcage, as intended. The second barely skimmed its spine.

The coeurl roared in pain. Ignis’ nostrils filled with that horrible burning stench, and for a moment there was nothing so urgent as the blistering pain that squeezed his head from either side. But the coeurl was not so hurt that it couldn’t retaliate, whisker-tendrils thrashing about, catching a powerful, white-hot blow to the side of Ignis’ neck.

“Ignis!”

The jolt was as if he’d thrown himself bodily into an electric fence, and the blow knocked him off his feet. He landed painfully on his shoulder with a splatter of mud, then flopped onto his back, feeling like his bones had been turned to gelatine. For a brief second, he saw the tree canopy above, the pinpoints of falling raindrops. Then the coeurl was bearing down upon him, claws out and spittle flying.

He did the only thing he could and thrust both blades upwards with all the strength left in his arms, hoping he didn’t miss this time. But in a flash of blue, the coeurl was flung away from him.

Ignis let out a breath of relief and shakily pushed up onto his elbows. The beast was dead. Noctis’ sword was embedded in its heart, the prince himself crouched with one knee on the coeurl’s side as he caught his own breath.

“Your aim has improved,” Ignis commented breathlessly.

Noctis looked up, beaming. “I was wondering when you would notice.”

“Could do with some help over here!” Prompto called to them, voice elevated with panic.

“Got a strategy for the second one?” Noctis asked Ignis, helping him to his feet.

“Kill it before it kills us?”

“Good enough. You hang back.” He warped over to help Gladio and Prompto.

Ignis, unable to warp, was forced to use his legs to get there—but whether due to the electric shock, the pain of the burn on his neck, or the headache, or the fatigue from the conspicuous lack of caffeine in his system, the adrenaline was already draining away, making the pain more painful and his sense of balance unsteady.

Having dealt with a fair number of lone coeurls in the past, they made short work of this one. Some more fire magic to distract it, Gladio’s sword as a shield against its claws as it reared onto his hind legs in anger, and some well-placed bullets to its exposed chest.

When it was done, the four of them were soaked, thoroughly out of breath, and with a fine coating of mud and blood.

“You doing okay?” Noctis asked Ignis. He pointed to the side of his own neck. “That looks painful.”

“Well, _I_ can’t see it, but I can certainly feel it,” said Ignis. He sighed. “I’m afraid I’m not exactly at my best today.”

He expected Noctis to make a light-hearted joke about his caffeine dependency, which was simultaneously no joking matter and exactly what Ignis deserved. Instead, Noctis frowned and produced a potion. “Let me see,” he said.

After only a moment’s hesitation, Ignis obliged, turning his head slightly so that Noctis could get a better look at the burn.

“It’s not so bad,” Noctis said. “I think. I’ve seen worse, at least.” He cracked the potion over the wound.

“That’s certainly reassuring.” At any rate, the pain subsided significantly. Knowing burns, it would probably scar—but, all considered, he got off rather lightly. His head was still attached to his body, for one thing. “Thank you, Noct,” he said genuinely.

Noctis glanced away. “Yeah, yeah,” he said. “Don’t thank me. It’s my fault we’re out here.”

“It’s not a crime to want to help,” Ignis pointed out. “You did the right thing by offering.”

“You think?” Noctis asked, sounding unsure.

“We got company,” Gladio said, before Ignis could respond. “Listen.”

Ignis froze, and Noctis visibly stiffened. They listened, expecting to hear more growling, but instead they could hear… squeaking? And squelching footsteps.

A man, middle-aged, wearing a plastic poncho much like theirs, rounded a bend in the driveway just ahead, pushing a rusty metal cart stacked with three small LPG bottles. He stopped when he saw them, and took in the scene—notably the two dead and bloodied coeurls blocking his driveway.

“Bloody hell,” he said.

Ignis exchanged a glance with Noctis.

“That about sums it up,” Prompto laughed nervously.

The whole way back to the station, George, the manager, repeatedly insisted that he would have been cat food if the four of them hadn’t come along and taken care of the coeurls for him. He was probably right. Forested areas weren’t a coeurl’s usual habitat, which suggested that they were there for a very specific purpose: to hunt.

Luckily, they didn’t run into anything else that might have wanted to eat them as they walked back to the station. Ignis, for his part, didn’t feel up to another bout. Aside from the headache and lethargy that continued to ail him, and the achiness in his shoulder from having landed on it earlier, potions tended to have a short-term depressive effect on the central nervous system, causing mild light-headedness and delayed reaction times. One would think that this might, perhaps, go some way towards dulling the headache—but, alas, no luck.

The shop attendant, along with the cook from the Crow’s Nest, were eagerly waiting for them when they finally returned, LPG bottles in cart. One good thing about the rain was that it had already taken care of most of the dirt and blood caking their faces and ponchos, though they were in serious need of towels for their hair—and the shop attendant had handily prepared for that eventuality.

Not even an hour later, the four of them were crammed into a booth in the Crow’s Nest, clothes largely dry thanks to the ponchos (even if their respective hairstyles, save perhaps Gladio’s, were _ruined_ ) sharing a massive plate of fries—on the house, despite obligatory objections.

Ignis, while he was normally not so fond of the low-quality, lukewarm, over-stewed coffee served at the Crow’s Nest, was more than happy to, just this once, lower himself to the level of non-discerning diner frequenters. And, perhaps it was just lingering effects from the potion, but the moment the first sip hit his tongue, it was as if the Choir of the Six had begun to sing from on high.

Finally. Coffee.

“So, I’ve definitely learned my lesson,” Noctis said, drowning a fry in the ketchup bowl. “Next time, I’ll stop and think before blindly offering help.”

“No you won’t,” said Gladio. “You _know_ you won’t.”

“It’s the thought that counts,” Ignis said airily. “At least you’ll have thought about thinking about it.”

“On the bright side, free food!” said Prompto.

“But at what price?” sighed Gladio with a weary shake of his head.

“Uh… free? It’s free food. It’s _free_.”

“How about you, Specs?” Noctis asked. “Feeling better?”

“Much,” Ignis said truthfully. Like an ailing addict who finally gets a hit, the headache had all but vanished before he’d even finished his first cup of coffee. He was now well into his second, and feeling much better for it. “Actually, I’ve been considering cutting back.”

They all stared at him.

“Don’t give me that look,” he said. “It’s a liability, if something like this were ever to happen again.”

“True enough,” said Gladio. “We need our master tactician to be sharp.”

“’They don’t like fire’, huh?” Prompto snickered. Noctis laughed, too.

“Not my brightest moment,” Ignis admitted.

Noctis grasped his shoulder. “Welcome to the club,” he said sombrely.

It _was_ usually Noctis who got himself into these sorts of situations. Must have been a nice change of pace for him, to be on the other side for once. It probably wouldn’t last long, to Ignis’ everlasting chagrin.

“Well, it was hardly the end of the world,” said Ignis, and downed the last mouthful of his coffee.

**Author's Note:**

> I can only speak to my own experience, but caffeine withdrawal headaches for me in the past have been disturbingly similar to migraine headaches. And also they _disappear_ within a few minutes of finally getting some caffeine. It's uncanny. But, y'know, caffeine is often used to treat headaches and migraines anyway. Something to do with blood vessels in the head.
> 
> Also, funnily enough, during some of the sections where I was trying to describe Ignis' headache, my own head started to reflect a bit of an ache. But only while I was writing those parts. I've had similar things happen, but not quite like this, so that's... interesting, I guess.
> 
> Aaaaaaanyway, it was an interesting change of pace to lay some hurt on Ignis instead of Noct for once. It felt really unnatural lmao.


End file.
